Gordon Greer: Squad are 'raring to go'

Thursday 4 June 2015

Gordon Greer says there’s no danger of the Scotland team showing tiredness in the upcoming games against Qatar and the Republic of Ireland.

The squad met up this week with many players coming straight from their clubs to the team base. Alan Hutton featured for Aston Villa in the FA Cup Final last Saturday while many others have just finished up their domestic duties.

Greer – who played his last game with Brighton & Hove Albion on May 2nd – believes the significance of the next 8 days will keep the players going.

He said: “I’ve had a good bit of time off without playing, so for myself and a few of the Championship boys who finished early May it’s just good to get a game before the Ireland match.”

“For the boys who’ve just finished - the manager is looking after them a bit more. When you’re involved in football after a long season, you’ve been relegated, promoted or whatever, you might need a couple of days to relax and unwind. But as soon as a week is over you’re ready to go again."

With the team sitting third in Group D at the halfway stage, fans and players could be forgiven for dreaming of Euro 2016 qualification. For Greer it’s a case of taking one game at a time:

“Its important there’s an end game and that is to qualify for the Euros – but for now we’ll just focus on the games in-between. Hopefully we put on good performances and at the end of the campaign, we’re there.

“It’s why you all play football as a young player. To represent your country and get to a major tournament would be fantastic. We’re not going down that road too far. When I was growing up I did dream of playing for Scotland at a major tournament but as you get older and get involved in it you just take each game as it comes.”

Before that crucial qualifier in Dublin there’s the game against Qatar at Easter Road to overcome. The Scotland defender is confident the fans will be out in force to cheer the team on in Edinburgh:

“It’s a game that’s important to us and we’ll be giving everything to get the right result. At this stage its up to us to put on the best performance we can and hopefully we get the right result. We’re raring to go.”

“Hopefully at Easter Road there’s a lot of Scotland fans there and they get behind us. When we go to Dublin there’ll be more Irish fans but our away supporters have got a knack of outsinging the home fans. It’ll be a great game.”